2nd teen hiker rescued in California canyon

Hiker friend Nicholas Cendoya, 19, was rescued Wednesday night.

Kyndall Jack, 18, was hoisted out of the Cleveland National Forest, east of Los Angeles, five days after she and a companion became lost while hiking on Easter Sunday. Her friend was rescued Wednesday night.(Photo: KABC-TV/AP)

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Two teens had been missing in California's Cleveland National Forest since Sunday

A second teenage hiker missing since Sunday was rescued Thursday in a rugged canyon near Los Angeles, authorities said.

Searchers found 18-year-old Kyndall Jack on a rocky slope in Trabuco Canyon in Cleveland National Forest after someone reported hearing a screaming woman around 10:30 a.m. PT, Orange County authorities said at a midafternoon news conference.

Ground crews located her about 90 minutes later. A helicopter hoisted her to safety from the extremely steep, brush-covered ravine about 11:50 a.m. and took her to the University of California-Irvine Medical Center. Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Jason Park said she was dehydrated and weak but responsive.

Kyndall Jack(Photo: Orange County Sheriff's Department)

"She's doing well," he said.

When her family was notified that she was safe, "they cried. They hugged us. They thanked us immensely," Capt. John Muir of the Orange County Fire Authority said at an earlier news briefing.

A reserve deputy sheriff suffered a serious head injury after falling 60 feet during Thursday's rescue, but his injuries are not life-threatening, Muir said.

Jack's hiking companion, Nicholas Cendoya, 19, was rescued Wednesday about 7:50 p.m. while trying to hike out. He is in serious-but-stable condition due to dehydration. Park described his injuries as superficial.

More than 100 reserve first responders from several agencies were involved in the five-day search.

The teenagers went missing Easter Sunday while hiking in Trabuco Canyon, in Orange County. They became separated after Jack apparently twisted an ankle and was unable to keep up with Cendoya as they tried to hike out of the brush, her father, Russ Jack, said earlier Thursday.

Neither was dressed for hiking in the rugged terrain; Cendoya was wearing shorts over a bathing suit and had no shirt or shoes. TV images of the rescue showed Jack dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and wearing some kind of footwear and socks.

Park said that authorities did not yet know "what their intentions were out there" but that "no doubt they went there with the best of intentions."

He described the terrain as "a complicated environment and, before you know it, you're lost."

Jack's father, Russ, told the Los Angeles Times before his daughter was found that Cendoya said that he believed she had already been saved and that he hadn't seen her for at least a day.

"Nicholas obviously was disoriented because of dehydration. ... He thought that Kyndall had already been rescued," Russ Jack said. "He said, 'I haven't seen her for a day. I think she's already been rescued.' "

Nicholas Cendoya(Photo: Orange County Sheriff's Department)

Kyndall Jack's mother and father spoke to searchers before they went to work Thursday.

"She may be very, very cold and shivering. I don't know how well she's going to be able to do anything," her mother, Dawn Jack, told searchers, according to the Times. "The closer you get, the louder you get, the more she is going to try and sit up. ... I know you guys can do this."

The family had refused to give up hope. "We're all still very, very hopeful that she's going to come out of this OK," Russ Jack told the Times.

Investigators hoped to get more information from Cendoya, who along with Kyndall Jack made a call from a dying cellphone on Sunday, setting off the search.

Friends of missing hikers, from left, Paige Wallace, Sarah Souza and Halie Teague, who says she has known the two hikers since high school, plan their search route Wednesday morning in Trabuco Canyon.(Photo: AP)

A shirtless, shoeless and dehydrated Cendoya was discovered by another hiker shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday, less than a mile from where he and Jack had parked their car. "He was extremely confused and disoriented," Park said.

The hiker who came across Cendoya went for help and found a firefighting training crew not involved in the search that happened to be nearby, he added.

Cendoya was surrounded by so much vegetation that the helicopter rescue crew had trouble keeping track of him once they found him.

"When the rescuer was lowered, he lost sight of him," said Division Chief Kris Concepcion of the Orange County Fire Authority. "That's how thick the brush was."